


A Rose By Any Other Name...

by obicifical



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Additional warnings and tags added as story progresses, Mild written gore, Multi, Other, Skeletons, Zuko and Iroh fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-17 12:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8144735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obicifical/pseuds/obicifical
Summary: A hypothesis: no matter what alternate universe poor Zuko is dropped into, he's the same cranky prince we all know and love.
(A collection of random AUs featuring the most famous jerkbender of all, and his much-maligned uncle.)





	1. The Avatar

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome. If you've got no idea what's going on, that's okay, because neither do I. 
> 
> Chapter 1: The Avatar is dead. Long live the Avatar.

Perhaps, Iroh mused as the floor rocked under his feet, he should have been a little more insistent about the expedition to the North. It was one thing, Zuko's entirely logical assumption about the chances of a current Avatar being trained there- but they'd looked already the summer before, and the outskirt villages of the Northern Water Tribe islands had thrown them back then as well.

Not quite as violently as this, though.

"Sound a retreat!" Zuko roared from somewhere in the foredeck. "The waterbenders are overwhelming us!"

I could have told you that was going to happen, Iroh thought as he ascended the stairs slowly. A few crewmembers politely but quickly shoved past him, heading down to the inoperative engine bay; as Iroh poked his head outside a wave of saltwater coated the deck and promptly turned to ice under Iroh's raised foot.

Zuko's retreat seemed to have emboldened the waterbenders. The old ship groaned and creaked as the water supporting it turned treacherous, and Iroh made his way out onto the day deck, making his way through the attacking Northerners as quickly and carefully as possible. Zuko's lunging form faded into view through a film of ice seperating the mid and bow-deck; Iroh melted a hole through it and blocked a slash of water headed straight for Zuko's back.

"Get below deck!" Iroh shouted over the din of fire and water colliding. Zuko turned to look at him as though he was insane, which would have rankled Iroh a bit if he hadn't been busy making sure the boy wasn't killed. "There's too many of them! Get below deck and direct engine repairs!"

"I'm not leaving you up here, Uncle!" For once, Zuko's firebending form was nearly impeccable- Iroh was almost proud of him. "If we don't get rid of these waterbenders they won't be able to make repairs!"

Iroh couldn't form a good rebuttal in time: he was busy splitting apart an incoming wave, water splashing onto him and then simmering off in great curling arcs of steam. Zuko became a weight at his back, the two moving in time as an opposing waterbender each formed a circle of thin skating ice around the ship. Not enough to hole them in, not permanently.

No, that was bloodlust Iroh could see in their eyes, fueling the vicious slashes of arm and hand directed at him and Zuko. He supposed, faintly, that he deserved it, but Zuko was hardly even sixteen yet.

At his back, Iroh felt Zuko's breath a half-second before a burst of flame blew apart another incoming wall of water. The droplets flew apart, hung in midair for a single heartbeat and then elongated into sparkling ice daggers the length of a thumb. Zuko let out a startled noise and Iroh broke their formation, turning with his front to Zuko's back. With a scythe of yellow-white flame he cut apart the ice-knives just as some of them cut through his robes. Zuko turned to face him, something resembling a smile tugging at his lips, and then it turned to horror.

"Uncle!"

A sharp Northerner hand caught Iroh off guard; before he could counter it ice encased his body up to his neck so tightly he could barely breathe, let alone form a breath of fire to free himself. Zuko circled around him protectively, repelling a lance of ice aimed at Iroh's head. Suddenly the world narrowed to Zuko's shouts and grunts of effort from behind and off to his left, and then Zuko went flying until he hit the walled edge of the deck so hard Iroh flinched. He stayed there, so terribly still for a moment until his fingers curled and Iroh's heart restarted.

"Gold trim," one of the waterbenders said, descending onto the deck with a splash. "Royalty. Let me guess- the banished prince?"

"In his rusty little ship," the other waterbender replied. The two had Iroh and Zuko semi-cornered- if Iroh had been free enough to inhale he could have melted through the ice by now, but it was only beginning to slick in his hands. Zuko groaned against the metal plating faintly.

"Don't know what you're doing here," the elder waterbender drawled as he went over to Zuko's prostrate form, "but this is the second time you've come up here. It seems to be turning into a bad habit."

"Don't touch him." Iroh pressed his heels against a slippery, flat plane of ice, pressing first with his feet and then with his knees. The ice ticked and cracked softly, his exposed skin sticking painfully to the ice as it barely began to yield.

"Why not? Don't tell me he'd be merciful." The younger waterbender, hardly that much older than Zuko, stepped within arm's reach of Zuko. Iroh saw him pull his leg back, foot lifting off the metal deck as if in slow motion, and then several things happened within the span of ten seconds:

Zuko grabbed the waterbender's leg, the floor underneath his face lit with an eerie glow-

\--Iroh felt the swell of a firebender's chi behind him as Lieutenant Jee bent a burst of flame at his ice prison, breaking him free--

\--the thin ice encasing the ship shattered like a thousand fine mirrors dropped upon the ground--

\--and Zuko's head lurched up, his neck bending at an unnatural angle, his eyes a burning white.

Jee pulled Iroh back a good five feet as Zuko rose like a possessed doll, his face twisted in a mask of rage so potent he looked nigh demonic; he tossed the younger waterbender into the sea so hard he skipped against the surface of the water twice. The elder waterbender attempted to conjure the wave, but Zuko took it, bending it with the fluidity of a learned master and using it to encase the Northerner in glittering ice and then throw him off the ship as well.

Zuko rose, higher than five men on each other's shoulders. Salt-laden air bent around and under his feet, and with a series of gestures he should not-- did not know he shattered and pulled the ice off of the ship, bringing water up on either side of the disabled vessel and pushing it manually. Jee gripped Iroh's upper arms hard enough to bruise as the ship rocked and then went forward, beginning to slowly cut through the water.

"What the hell is going on?" Jee shouted. Iroh would be sympathizing with his lack of decorum if Zuko hadn't been levitating in the air like some terrible, vengeful spirit. The distant screams of panicked Water Tribe benders undercut the roar of rushing waves beating against the ship.

"Hold still!" Iroh grabbed the nearest part of Jee, holding onto his shoulder like their lives depended upon it. Zuko seemed hellbent on getting the ship out of Water Tribe territory, the ship creaking and groaning threateningly as it was forced to cast through water at speeds it hadn't experienced in a very, very long time.

Then, just as suddenly as Zuko started, he stopped. The plume of air holding him up dissipated; the waves propelling the ship died down, though it kept moving in momentum's grip. Zuko fell through the air into Iroh and Jee's joined arms like a sack of potatoes.

"Agni on high," Jee whispered.

"You speak of this to no one." Iroh gave Jee a level look until the Lieutenant nodded his assent, then pressed his palm to Zuko's sweat-drenched forehead. He looked like a man who'd fought twenty waterbenders, and lost. His clothes were soaked through with freezing water. "Help me carry him down to the mess. He'll get hypothermia if we don't get him into some dry clothes."

"What was that he just did, sir?" Jee half-whispered as they took him down the stairs below deck.

"We will talk about this later, Lieutenant," Iroh murmured pointedly. Zuko stirred in their arms; Iroh let Jee take his weight entirely, opening the door to the mess hall for the two of them. Jee laid Zuko out onto a table, and Iroh quickly unclasped Zuko's armor-plates, dropping them onto the floor.

"Some blankets, please," Iroh said. Jee ducked out with a quick salute, closing the door after himself with a heavy clank that jarred Zuko out of his exhausted semi-unconsciousness- he grabbed Iroh's shoulder and tried to pull himself up off the table partway. Iroh pushed him back down, letting chi pool in his palms as he undid the clasp of Zuko's tunic.

"Uncle- the ship-" Zuko croaked.

"Shhh. The ship is fine. We are all out of immediate danger now." Iroh peeled Zuko's wet tunic off and manually crossed his arms over his bared chest, rubbing his goosebump prickled shoulders. "Remember your breath of fire, Prince Zuko. In, and out. In, and out. Let your chi flow with your breath. Good."

Small curls of fire escaped Zuko's lips, finally, and he captured them in his palms, his face lit at odd intervals by the flames. "What happened?"

"I have no idea." Iroh moved down and pulled off Zuko's boots without ceremony, dropping them onto the floor. The ship seemed to almost shiver as Iroh wrapped his chi-warmed palms around Zuko's cold feet. A distant, foreboding thoom-thoom reverberated through the empty room, and then a single, churlish clank from deep below. The signal-horn rang outside like a rooster announcing the dawn.

"The engine," Zuko whispered into his hands. "The engine's on."

"It is." Iroh took a moment to just look Zuko over, completing his mental checklist: both eyes, yes, scar, yes, ten fingers and ten toes, yes. All his appendages seemed intact- there were a few marks around his shoulders, mostly bruising from his armor hitting his skin, and Zuko's knuckles were bruised and bleeding in some places. There was a reddening mark where he'd hit his head barely two minutes earlier, but it was barely the width of Iroh's finger. Hardly terrible condition, aside from the hypothermia Zuko seemed to be pulling himself out of. "You scared me half to death, my nephew. Do you remember what happened on the deck?"

"I.." Zuko started uncertainly. The door to the mess hall banged open, announcing Lieutenant Jee, who held a pile of wool blankets.

"Engine's back on, General Iroh," Jee said. "If we treat the ship gently it should be able to take us all the way back to Nan Seng without too much trouble."

"That is good news," Iroh replied, gratefully taking one of the blankets as Jee handed it to him. Iroh turned, offering it to Zuko, who after a moment's sour consideration snatched it and very slowly slid off the surface of the table onto the floor. "Thank you, Lieutenant. I'm sure Prince Zuko appreciates the blankets, since he fell overboard and all."

"And all," Jee repeated. Him and Zuko held a moment of rather venomous eye contact until Zuko finally turned his back, wrapping the wool blanket around himself. Iroh grabbed another blanket from Jee and slung it around Zuko's narrow shoulders, ignoring his faint snarl of indignity.

"If you would be so kind as to take Prince Zuko's clothes down to the laundry to be washed and dried, Lieutenant Jee, thank you." Lacking Zuko's wet pants, of course, but Iroh knew he'd rather save that for after he'd gotten back to his room. Jee eyed the dripping mess on the floor, looked back up at Iroh, and finally nodded in the manner of a child doing something he didn't want to because his parents ordered him to. Iroh hardly blamed him.

"Very well. Where are you and Prince Zuko going to be, sir?" Jee asked as he bent to start picking up the pieces of Zuko's discarded wardrobe.

"In his quarters," Zuko said before Iroh could reply, veritably deep-fried in a cocoon of wool. Iroh set his jaw to avoid smiling at the sight- he looked so very.. young, wrapped up like a toddler fresh out of a bath. "You can go now, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir," Jee muttered, though from the pinch at the corners of his eyes Iroh suspected Jee found the sight just as funny. The Lieutenant left, arms piled with wet clothes, and after a moment of Zuko re-wrapping himself nephew and uncle made their way out into the hall.

Some of the crew gave them Looks as the two passed, but no one seemed to eye them too much. Not that Iroh didn't trust Jee to keep a secret, out of all the crew, but he'd been so occupied with Zuko that he hadn't noticed the presence of any others on the deck.

Iroh ushered himself into Zuko's room, turning his back to his nephew as Zuko changed into a new outfit. The room warmed with the presence of two firebenders, Iroh breathing out soft curls of heat surreptitiously in case Zuko was too preoccupied to keep warming himself. There was a wet flumpt as Zuko's waterlogged trousers hit the far wall.

"Mph," Zuko said after a minute. Iroh turned and beheld Zuko sitting on his floormat, scowling deeper than usual, slouched over with exhaustion.

"Would you like a cup of tea, Prince Zuko?" Not that Iroh wanted to spend the next few minutes brewing tea in silence when specific conversations needed to happen badly, but Zuko looked as though he dearly needed a cup of ginseng tea to warm him up.

"Nngh," Zuko grunted, his mouth hidden behind two layers of wool. Ah, well. Iroh could feel his chi flickering, this close- he was probably making his blankets into a lovely little oven to trap all the heat he was exhaling. A good idea, now that Iroh thought about it. He sat down on the floormat, just out of arm's reach of his nephew, and took his shoes off.

"Such a cold day outside," Iroh mused aloud for lack of anything better to say, and didn't have to look up to know Zuko was scowling at him.

"Uncle." Zuko pulled the blankets down just enough that he could speak clearly. "Don't avoid the subject. I remember what happened on the deck."

"Do you?" Iroh leaned forward slightly, busying his hands with kneading warmth back into his feet (in lieu of wringing them like a concerned mother).

"I hit my head, and.." Zuko threaded a hand through the blankets, rubbing the spot where he'd nearly been knocked out. "All of the sudden it was like I wasn't in my body anymore." Something like fear finally entered Zuko's golden eyes, as if he was finally realizing the horror of the entire thing. "I bent the water. And the air. I felt some of the waterbenders trying to come after me, and I used their water against them."

"Yes," Iroh said heavily. "I think I know what has happened, my nephew."

A look of betrayal flashed across Zuko's face, mixed with a sort of enraged exhaustion that Iroh found terribly familiar. "The Avatar cycle," he started.

"--Has obviously been disrupted, if a firebender is the Avatar again," Iroh continued for him in a slightly hushed tone. "The last Avatar must have died, fifteen years ago, for this to have happened."

"Sixteen." Zuko sounded terribly hoarse, suddenly, as if he'd been screaming. Iroh exhaled slowly.

"This changes some things," he declared. Zuko's chin lifted.

"Does this mean I can go home, now?" Zuko looked up at him, so wrenchingly hopeful that Iroh wanted to wring Ozai's neck all over again for what he'd done. He settled for patting Zuko's feet underneath the blankets instead.

"That is not up to me, Prince Zuko. If it were, you would be home already." Bitter, knotted anger rose in his throat as Zuko looked down at his feet. As if his nephew hadn't had enough weight on his shoulders already- now the spirits saw fit to deposit the balance of the entire world on him? It wasn't as if the cycle had naturally progressed, and things somehow coincidentally fell to Zuko, no: the spirit of the Earth had to have chosen Zuko specifically, the great-grandson of the greatest and most terrible patriarchs of the Fire Nation.

Cruelty. Cruelty, at its finest. But there was no shouting at the spirit of the Earth, nor at Agni, not when it was Zuko who needed comforting and Iroh was the only one who could attempt to give it to him. Later, maybe, there would be time for vengeful prayer to whatever spirit would listen. Maybe he ought to appeal to Tui and La, since Agni seemed useless.

"We will figure this out, my nephew," Iroh said. "At the very least, your quest is finally complete. You've found the Avatar."

Zuko crumpled further inwards on himself, exhaling a breath that shimmered with heat in the low light.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. The Grim Reaper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2: The Grim Reaper might be a skeleton, but there's no rule that says it can't be a skeleton you know.
> 
> (Shamelessly inspired by the works of Terry Pratchett.)

Zuko found himself standing in the middle of a field. It wasn't the first time he'd found himself standing in the middle of a field at midsummer, no, but somehow he was completely sure he hadn't been standing in this picturesque green smear ten minutes earlier. He took a step forward and found that the ground underneath his foot was just as solid and grass-covered as it seemed. The dirt piled under his shoe when scuffed, just like real dirt.

And yet. And yet, the air was unearthly still. It made his teeth tingle, the hair on the back of his neck stand up. No air on Earth should be this still- it was like standing in the middle of a stone.

"How the hell did I get here?" he said to the waving grass.

"You're not here," a voice from behind him said, as if filtered through a wet washcloth. "Not yet."

He turned around and beheld a olivine, fly-eaten corpse with its withered hands on its hips, staring at him. He took in every detail- the hollowed eye sockets, the shattered ribs peeking out through translucent parchment-like skin, the complete and total lack of offensive odor. There was absolutely nothing identifying about the half-rotted creature standing in front of him, and yet, Zuko knew his name instantly.

"Am I dead?" he demanded. The corpse shook its head.

"Nope. Awful close, though." The corpse shrugged. It stepped closer to Zuko, casting no shadow on the fertile-looking dirt. "You know who I am?"

"Yes," Zuko said easily. "You're.." And now, suddenly, the name wouldn't escape Zuko's mouth, though he knew this thing was a close relative of his. "You're--"

"Your cousin. Lu Ten. Dead these eight years." The corpse laughed, a sound which resembled more wet washcloths being dropped on tile repeatedly. It wasn't quite how Zuko remembered Lu Ten's laugh, but then, it'd been a long while since he'd heard Lu Ten speak. "Damn, but it is good to talk to some relatives again! You know how long I've been following Father and you kids around?"

"I can guess. Why are you here?" He wanted to be frustrated that he was here, maybe disgusted or shocked at Lu Ten's appearance, but his emotions seemed to him like they were being filtered through a gauze of silk- turned end on end and then finally handed to him to process once the mess was settled. It was a bit unnerving, but only a bit.

"You're rather close to joining me. See, Zuko.." The corpse sat down on the ground, beckoning him to do the same. Zuko ignored the squishing coming from the corpse's general direction and sat down slowly, legs crossed.

"The thing with dead people like me, who get the short stick and end up hanging around a lot, is that we're awful close to the boundary of the living and the dead. More so than regular dead people, if you get my meaning. So once you, a living person, gets close to that boundary, we can sort of reach across and shake hands." The corpse paused, raising twig-like fingers to its chin. "Not literally, though. That would be very bad."

"So.. you've come to escort me?" Zuko concluded hesitantly.

"Oh, no. We're only visiting until you get back to the land of the living. You're far too young to die." The corpse leaned forward with a sound somewhat like a wet branch being snapped. "And far, far too important. There are big plans for you, Zuko."

"Like getting my face burnt?" Zuko suggested. If the corpse had possessed anything resembling a normal facial structure, it would probably have looked chagrined. Instead, it hunched in a little.

"Like.. that, yes." It gave the visual effect of sighing without the sound, shoulders heaving with little cracks and squelches. "I am sorry that happened, for whatever it's worth. It shouldn't have. You don't deserve half the treatment you receive."

"It," Zuko started, about to talk about Ozai, but the emotional conviction refused to be summoned. He put his palms together softly and noticed that the corpse seemed to be decomposing further; bits of green and brown fell off its structure, dissolving into little wisps of smoke. It didn't seem particularly concerned.

"What do you mean by hanging around a lot?" he tried, finally. If his time here was limited, it was probably best to ask all the questions he could think of.

"Oh, you know. Here and there, keeping an eye on Father and you and Azula. Making sure things don't go too far off-track. I don't have a lot of influence on the living world, but sometimes I can make a difference where it's needed."

"Does Uncle know you're.." 'Haunting' seemed a little insulting, for some reason. "Keeping track of him?"

"Nnnno. In fact, I've been forbidden from doing anything directly affecting his life. Not anyone else's life, just his." A rather large flap of skin fell off the corpse's face and disintegrated into dust. The corpse batted at it with an irritated hiss. "We don't have enough time for me to explain it all, so I'll just say it's complicated."

"Oh," Zuko bleated wearily, not understanding a damn thing. "Why haven't you.. crossed over fully yet?"

"My work isn't done yet." The corpse leaned forward, its hands on its knees. Several teeth fell out of its jaw and dissolved just after they fell onto the ground with delicate little plinks. "Speaking of which, before we go our seperate ways, could you do something for me?"

"I- sure." Zuko noticed the placid blue sky was beginning to turn a foreboding dark blue-grey at the edges. A heavy curtain of cloudfront began to roll in over the far horizon. "What do you need?"

"Could you tell Father I'm sorry?" The corpse's voice suddenly cracked- not metaphorically, as a 16-year-old boy's voice does when he talks to his crush, but literally; its words slurred as its teeth began shattering in their sockets. "I'm sorry for blaming him for everything, and I love him. There, that should be short enough."

"I'll tell him." Zuko thought about reaching forward to attempt a soothing touch, then reconsidered it. "Something seems to be happening out there," he added, pointing to the encroaching stormclouds. Somehow, he was keenly aware of thunder without actually hearing any.

"Yes, I know. Looks like our visit is over." The corpse- now a perfect, blackened skeleton- began slowly sinking into the ground. "Don't forget what I told you, alright?"

"I won't!"

The skeletonized spirit of Lu Ten disappeared into the ground, which then disappeared itself, and the rest of it was suddenly in Zuko's belly and coming back up with a vengeance into a tin bucket. He grabbed onto the edges and relieved his stomach of the burden of digesting, vaguely impressed with the variety of colors exhibited. The rest of him felt like he'd been dragged behind an ostrich-horse in the hot sun for several days.

"Easy, Zuko." Warm, worn hands rubbed Zuko's heaving back. "That's it. Let all the poison come back up and out of you. Very good."

Zuko gasped for air, choking until he finally coughed up the blockage into the bucket, and then he fell back against the floormat. Uncle Iroh's worried face filled his vision; a cold, wet cloth came to rest on Zuko's forehead. He sucked in a rattling breath.

"There," Iroh said. "I think you are around the corner, now." He picked up the tin bucket and winced at the sloshing contents. "Don't move too much. I'll be right back."

Zuko did his best impression of a dead log. It was, in his opinion, completely flawless, aside from his rather wet and labored breathing.

He reached up, touching the wet rag laying over his forehead, and used it to wipe his face off. The wooden beams crisscrossing the roof came in and out of focus like swaying branches. There was something important- something terribly important- that he couldn't entirely recall; his head throbbed the more he tried to remember it.

"Here," Uncle Iroh said from somewhere above and to his left. The bucket was set next to Zuko's head gently. "Rest and recover. You scared me a little there, Zuko."

"Something," Zuko mumbled, his head lolling towards Iroh as he sat down on the floormat. Iroh laid a hand on his chest.

"Shhh. Whatever it is, it can wait until after you get some sleep." Iroh sighed, his hands laid properly in his lap, fingers threaded together. Zuko turned towards him and laid there, so exhausted that he would've fallen asleep had it not been for the one thought just beyond his reach.

  
"Lu Ten," Zuko groaned into his pillow. There- now it came back to him, finally. "He said.. he said he's sorry. For blaming you. He loves you." The all-important message delivered, Zuko curled into his sleeping mat and pulled the blanket up over his shoulders.

He didn't see Iroh's clenched jaw, or the hard-but-trembling glitter in his eyes as Iroh laid a reverent hand on Zuko's thin shoulder with the love of a man embracing his newborn child. Iroh's whispered _thank you_ fell on sleeping ears.

 


End file.
